Taking Measure of Content Marketing Performance

In today’s multichannel world where consumers are bombarded with content across a variety of different devices, it’s more important than ever that brands provide engaging and relevant content to ensure that they stand out from the crowd. This is particularly key for those focusing on performance-based marketing, so they can ensure relevant adverts are put in front of the right consumers and ultimately drive conversions and increase ROI.

Identifying the processes and efforts undertaken when creating content can help to build a fuller picture of a campaign’s success. There still isn’t a universally applied measurement system but with a rational approach businesses can keep up with current best practices that deliver successful performance marketing campaigns.

Getting a content strategy right

Content strategies should strongly tie into the overall business and brand objectives. To begin outlining a strategy, start by asking yourself a few questions:

What is the aim of your content? This could be a number of things including improving user engagement, generating leads or growing brand awareness.

How will you know if you have achieved success? Using specific, measurable aims decide what success looks like, i.e. ‘our aim is to generate 10 leads from each blog post’.

When and where will the content be used? Is it online, offline, for new or existing customers and how will these factors affect the tone of the content? Making sure the tone and style is appropriate for the medium will directly influence engagement levels.

Applying your strategy

Content calendars not only allow for an uninterrupted stream of content but act as a benchmark for the type and quality of content desired. Check you’re on the right track by checking whether the content detailed be delivered on budget and on time? Have you allowed enough time for content creation to stay on schedule, and are you utilising your internal resources in the most efficient way possible? If you’ve outsourced the content creation make sure it meets your expectations both on the workflow/process level and on the quality side. If your content creators don't have enough time to complete the work, they'll be over-stretched and potentially compromising quality.

Measurement is the key to continued success

Analysing the raw data can reveal insights which could help to improve your content’s traction time after time. Some useful measures to consider are whether brand awareness increased and whether there's data to back this up. Key measures to consider are impressions, volume of brand search terms, social media growth, blog subscriptions and newsletter sign-ups. Google Analytics offers insight into the pages your visitors go to, the time people have stayed on each page, which links they have clicked on and if they are a new or returning visitor - all of which help you to determine the success of a piece of content. Did activity translate to sales, and can any sales be directly attributed to your activities and does the return help justify your outgoings? Consider going directly to your customers with consumer-facing surveys to ask what they care about the most and how they interpret your key messages.

Measuring results across a number of different silos is tricky when each platform measures success and engagement in a different way, but if you can ensure your content efforts are guided by objective performance data, you’ll undoubtedly set your content apart from competitors’ repetitive churn.

Paul Parreira

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